Challenge

client’s existing site was a one page text list of stores with website & phone# info for each

Strategy

enhance the site’s visual appeal, and include a floorplan of the mall to make it easier for new visitors to find stores.

Implementation

theme: found a theme framework that provided the building blocks to put together a custom structure.

photos: took wide-angle photos of the mall’s exterior, including a central shot that had the main mall sign prominent in the foreground. Also took a few interior ones.

store listings: it was a unique challenge to try and strike a good balance between presenting all the info users would likely wanted, without over-cluttering this section. Found a commercial module that lent itself quite well to these demands. It offered:

auto placement of store logos in rows and columns; adjust automatically to different screen sizes

categorization, so that users could filter down the list of stores by clicking on a category.

ability to store phone, website, and facebook links in popup boxes.

floorplan: based on the plain-lines floorplan used by the mall, set up a vector-based graphic floorplan in CorelDraw, and placed store logos over their locations – or close to them with arrows. Found a WordPress module that provided a way to use Google map technology on a large graphic, which let me create a floorplan section that scales to mobile devices, and users can pan/zoom just like a google map.

seo: did extensive research into the mall’s online presence in directories, maps, etc. Claimed/updated listings where available, to improve google brownie points

facebook feed: the mall’s facebook page has a lot of fans, and gets a substantial amount of views each month. A live feed was added to the website, to maximize the ability of the site to display the latest facebook posts.

domain/site costs: after looking at the client’s current domain/hosting package, found a more cost-effective solution with the same parent company that gave more features, at half the cost.

Result

The new site is now mobile ready, with visual appeal, floorplan, flexible store list, and a direct live feed from the mall’s facebook page.